University of Mary enrollment is ‘booming,’ considers first-ever waitlist

For years, the University of Mary has been growing, even as many colleges across the country struggle with enrollment; but this year the school’s growth is surpassing all expectations—even its own. The Newman Guide-recommended Catholic university in Bismarck, N.D., may even have to start a waiting list.

“The University of Mary is no longer the best-kept secret in higher education,” Richard Hinton, director of undergraduate admissions, said in a news release.

The University of Mary has 33 percent more commitments from incoming freshmen than at this time last year, along with a 27 percent increase in applications.

“Keep in mind, what makes this so remarkable is that we are still seven months away from the start of the 2018 fall semester and enrollment is going at breakneck pace—we’re booming,” Hinton said. “We expect that we should be able to accommodate all of the students who want to attend Mary in the fall. That said, if interest continues to be this strong, there is a possibility that we might be forced to employ a waitlist.”

Newman Society seeing renewal of faithful Catholic education

The Cardinal Newman Society’s President Patrick Reilly recently told The College Fix that he is “seeing a renewal of authentic, faithful Catholic education because it’s special and rare.”

In a story about how Thomas Aquinas College was ranked 14th on the Kiplinger’s 300 Best College Values—beating out other institutions such as Boston College and Notre Dame—Reilly said the institutions named in The Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College attract students specifically because of their fidelity. These schools “forego the country club campus” to focus on education, and their faculty take a pay cut because they “love Catholic education.”

He contrasted faithful Catholic colleges with those which are “Catholic lite.” Those colleges, he said, are less attractive to many because they “struggle to stay distinctive at a much higher cost than the public options.”

Feds won’t investigate transgender bathroom complaints in schools

In a welcomed change from the previous administration, the Department of Education has announced that it will not investigate cases where transgender students complain about being banned from their chosen bathrooms, according to The Daily Wire.

In 2016, the Obama administration issued revolutionary guidance, which stated that the old verbiage of Title IX had a new meaning and therefore guaranteed transgender students being able to use whichever restroom they felt matched their gender identity. The Trump administration rescinded that guidance last year.

A spokesperson for the Department of Education said that “Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, not gender identity,” and therefore restroom complaints from transgender students are not covered.

This announcement is a welcome one for anyone concerned with the right of Catholic schools to retain their Catholic identity.

Three ‘Catholic’ colleges to host Amoris Laetitia conferences

Angelus News reports that the Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Blase Cupich, has invited several U.S. bishops and theologians to a series of conferences on Pope Francis’ 2016 apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia. Curiously, these seminars will be held at three Catholic colleges whose fidelity to Catholic teaching leaves much to be desired.

The meetings, dubbed “New Momentum Conferences on Amoris Laetitia,” will reportedly be held at Boston College, the University of Notre Dame, and Santa Clara University—all schools that have problematic relationships with Church teachings.

Cardinal Donald Wuerl and Archbishop Wilton Gregory are scheduled to speak at the Boston College seminar, Cardinals Joseph Tobin and Blase Cupich at Notre Dame, and Bishops Steven Biegler and Robert McElroy at Santa Clara.

Catholic school allows student to display Planned Parenthood sticker

After telling a student she must cease displaying an “I Stand with Planned Parenthood” sticker, Sacred Heart Greenwich, an independent Catholic school in Connecticut, has reversed itself and will now allow the sophomore to keep the sticker, according to Breitbart.

Head of School Pamela Juan Hayes said the issue of was one of “freedom of expression.” However, Bishop Frank Caggiano of the Diocese of Bridgeport gave full support to the school’s original decision to have the young girl leave the school if she refused to remove the sticker.

“The Catholic Church’s opposition to abortion is almost universally understood, as is its consistent pro-life ethic, which defends the right to life of all those among us, particularly the most vulnerable in our society,” the diocese said in a statement. “As such, the diocese fully supports the commitment of Head of School Pamela Hayes to affirm the Church’s teaching, while also recognizing and respecting the right of students to question and challenge as they grow in the learning process.”

But the school’s original decision drew outrage from some of the school’s alumnae and inspired a petition which drew more than 2,500 names. And shortly after, the school reversed itself.

On Feb. 14, Head of School Pamela Juan Hayes updated the school’s website to say that the school is “forming a working group to facilitate a transparent, thorough examination of the environment for independent thinking and the articulate expression of ideas within our curriculum and student life.”

Georgetown hosts pro-abortion Hillary Clinton

Former presidential candidate and abortion advocate Hillary Clinton was at Georgetown University earlier this month to hand out the Hillary Rodham Clinton Awards for Advancing Women in Peace and Security at a ceremony, hosted annually by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS).

“Advancing the rights and opportunities and full participation of women and girls is the great unfinished business of the 21st century,” Clinton said at the event. “We are not going back, and women’s voices are not shutting up.”

Unless, of course, those voices are in the womb. Then, presumably, she’s OK with silencing them.

Teachers union pushes for funding for abortion groups

An Ontario Catholic teachers’ union with a long history of public opposition to Catholic moral teaching is pushing a Catholic school board to repeal a motion that upholds the sanctity of human life, reports Lifesitenews.com.

The Halton Catholic District School Board recently approved a proposal to prohibit any of its 50 schools from raising money for or donating to “any charities or non-profits that publicly support, either directly or indirectly, abortion, contraception, sterilization, euthanasia, or embryonic stem-cell research.”

While it seems like a common-sense action from a Catholic school board, a letter from two representatives of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA) called it “needlessly divisive” and blamed the trustees for “taking such a narrow view of Catholic values.”

How to find a method in theology

How should one begin studying theology? Father John Cush, who serves as academic dean and as a formation advisor at the Pontifical North American College, gave a simple, concise answer in a National Catholic Register column.

“First, have faith in Christ and in his Church. And second, pray,” he wrote.

“It may sound all too simplistic, but the truth of the matter is, I think, pretty simple: The Catholic theologian who does not have faith in Christ and faith in the Church that Christ founded, and who is not a prayerful person cannot be a Catholic theologian,” he said. “At best, they would be a scholar of religious studies or a historian of religion.”